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Share ThisThe two Europeans, Louis Chevrolet and William S. Knudsen, were decisive figures in the development of the Chevrolet brand. It is not surprising that the company cultivated close contacts with the “old continent”. Although the largest share of the production was sold in booming America, nearly a quarter million cars were assembled between 1924 and the late 1960s from completely knocked-down (CKD) assembly kits for local markets in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The first “European” Chevrolet, a truck model, was assembled in Copenhagen on January 7, 1924. By 1951, the Danish subsidiary established in 1923 as General Motors International A/S had assembled a total of 122,737 Chevrolet models - about half of which (58,894) were passenger cars. These Chevrolets were sold in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries as well as in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Russia. At the beginning, the Copenhagen plant received the CKD parts from a Chevrolet plant in Tarrytown near New York City and as from 1925 from the Bloomfield plant in New Jersey.
Chevrolet’s second overseas assembly plant was named “General Motors Continental” and was established in Belgium. The company was set up in an old abbey in Antwerp. The first Chevrolet to be assembled there left the plant on April 2, 1925. Soon, demand grew faster than the daily production of 25 vehicles could supply. In July 1926, the assembly was relocated to the Antwerp cycle stadium. It is unsure how many of the 178,072 vehicles assembled in Antwerp between 1925 and 1940 actually carried the bowtie logo. However, the exact number of Chevrolets produced there after the war was recorded at 78,162 vehicles.
In the fall of 1934, the establishment of the General Motors assembly plant in Switzerland started with a scene fit for the stage: with a handful of mud and the words “Here I bring to you the earth on which we shall build our factory”, Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966), GM’s chairman at the time, signaled to Swiss President Guido Müller his agreement to establishing a plant in Biel. Between 1936 and 1968, a total of 26,858 vehicles were assembled in Switzerland for sale in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, adorned with a logo depicting Switzerland’s three most famous mountains, Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, and the slogan “Montage Suisse”.
In Poland, General Motors manufactured Chevrolet models at two locations: from the fall of 1929 in a plant at 103 Wolska Street in Warsaw and from 1937 in a second plant in the Wola district of Warsaw. In 1936, General Motors signed an agreement with a local company, Lilop Rau & Loewenstein S.A., concerning the production of Cadillac, La Salle, Buick, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet, GMC, Opel and Vauxhall brand automobiles. Before start of production, the local employees were trained at General Motors International A/S in Copenhagen. The Chevrolet models produced in Wola included the four-door Master Sedan, Master De Luxe, Master Touring Sedan and the Imperial limousine.
Increasingly, parts were no longer imported but rather manufactured locally. The start was made with paint colors from Wloclawek, batteries from the “Tudor” plant in Piastów and Stomil brand tires from Poznán. At the same time, the company cooperated with other Polish manufacturers such as headlamp manufacturers “A. Marciniak” and the transmission specialist “John” from Lódz. The Lublin engine plant which opened in 1938 supplied six-cylinder engines for the Chevrolet production. In 1939, a total of 159 parts of Polish origin were used in production. With the start of World War II, production in Poland was stopped.
In Germany, Chevrolets were manufactured in plants in Berlin-Wittenau and in Berlin-Borsigwalde. In September 1927, the 5,000th Chevrolet assembled in Germany left the plant. Capacity was increased to some 2,000 vehicles per month in 1929. Unfortunately, the demand for Chevrolet models 11/30 and 6 was unstable. With the onset of the Depression, sales declined and the plant was closed effective October 31, 1931.
In the United Kingdom, General Motors cooperated with Vauxhall Motors Ltd. from 1925 onward. GM considered the deal (£650,000) to be a favorable overseas investment to avoid high import duties which in the UK depended on the weight of the vehicles. At the beginning, the 10cwt and 1-ton vehicles were manufactured in Hendon. When demand rose in 1928 and Chevrolet had already become a serious competitor for Ford, production was transferred to a factory in Luton. When the truck boom collapsed, Chevrolet largely withdrew from the UK. Only a small number of vehicles made in the USA were sold via specialists.
